New US Passports Will Now Identify Convicted Child Sex Offenders

Convicted child sex offenders who travel to foreign countries will soon be doing so with passports that advertise their convictions.

The State Department announced this week that it is beginning the process of implementing International Megan’s Law to Prevent Child Exploitation and Other Sexual Crimes Through Advanced Notification of Traveling Sex Offenders, which was passed last year. The law required that passports of registered child sex offenders have a “unique identifier.”

Step one of the law will come in a notice from the State Department, which will be given names of convicted child sex offenders form the Department of Homeland Security. Offenders with passports will be notified that their passports are revoked.

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Child sex offenders will then have to apply for new passports.

New passports issued to those offenders will carry a notice inside the back cover that reads, “The bearer was convicted of a sex offense against a minor, and is a covered sex offender pursuant to 22 United States Code Section 212b(c)(l),” according to CNN.

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Offenders who have passports can use them until they are notified that their passports are being revoked.

The new legislation is being opposed by the Alliance for Constitutional Sex Offense Laws, which argued that the bill violates the constitutional rights of registered sex offenders.

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“We do believe that this is a very slippery slope,” Janice Bellucci, the group’s founder and executive director, told The New York Times.

“Today, it’s people convicted of sex offenses involving minors, but, given the current political environment, perhaps next it will be Muslims,” she said. “Or maybe it will be people who are gay.”

The group lost its initial attempt to block implementation of the law. Bellucci said it would try again.

The State Department said the language in the passports “will not prevent covered sex offenders from departing the United States, nor will it affect the validity of their passports.”

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However, it said that the notice could impact travelers due to potential foreign laws that might restrict the travel of individuals convicted of felonies or sex offenses.

Republican Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey, who sponsored the legislation in Congress, said its purpose was “to protect children in the U.S. and around the world from convicted pedophiles who travel in or out of the United States unbeknownst to law enforcement officials.”

“Signed into law in 2016, the law capped an eight-year effort to enact international notification legislation that draws on current federal and state Megan’s Laws that require public notice when a sex offender moves into a U.S. neighborhood,” he said in a statement.

“It is imperative that we take the lessons we have learned on how to protect our children from known child sex predators within our borders and expand those to children globally,” Smith said on the House floor before the 2016 vote to approve the law.

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“Child predators thrive on secrecy, a secrecy that allows them to commit heinous crimes against children with impunity and without any meaningful accountability. Megan’s Law — with its emphasis on notification — must go global, to protect America’s children and children worldwide.”